As they took their school reform show on the road, top officials got hit with a question: How will you keep badly behaved kids in check, so that the rest of the students can learn?
The question came from a grandmother named Damonne Jones, whose grandkids attend Beecher School. She asked it in the library of that school Wednesday night, as schools chief Reggie Mayo (pictured) and his deputy, Garth Harries, kicked off a promised citywide tour of public talks to build support for the principles behind Mayor John DeStefano’s school reform initiative.
Mayo agreed with the grandmother’s concern — and then unveiled a new initiative to combat what he called a spike in unruly behavior in the classroom, to the highest level in years.
Harries (pictured) and Mayo came to Beecher at the request of four west side aldermen whose constituents wanted to know more about the major changes afoot in their kids’ classrooms.
The school reform initiative, to be rolled out beginning this academic year, has four goals: building a culture of high expectations; attracting and retaining top teachers and administrators; gaining community and parental involvement; and shifting accountability onto individual schools. Schools will be evaluated and placed in a three-tiered system based on student improvement; schools that fail may be closed and reorganized as charters.
Harries and Mayo pitched these plans to 15 members of the public and five aldermen in the light-filled library of the newly rebuilt Beecher on Jewell Street. After a 35-minute overview, they opened the floor for questions.
Jones (pictured) described herself as an active grandmother whose kids grew up at Beecher. She said she often has the chance to visit the school during the school day.
She shared an observation: Many classrooms have one or two kids who make it their job to give the teacher a hard time, she said. Those teachers end up spending most of their time disciplining that bad behavior, instead of teaching the rest of the class, she said.
With those kids “causing chaos,” she said, the rest of the students can’t learn.
“That’s a big issue,” Jones said.
How will school officials make sure disruptive classroom behavior doesn’t stand in the way of kids meeting the new academic goals?
Behavior Tackled
Mayo said the problem Jones raised is particularly serious these days — and he’s rolling out a couple new ways to address it.
The superintendent acknowledged “a serious spike in discipline” last school year. There were more students with “social-emotional problems” than he has ever seen in his tenure, which has lasted 16 years.
A lot of kids are upset because their parents have split up, he said.
Others face a myriad of home-life problems that tend to spring from poverty. Those problems often become school behavior problems: Those students get depressed, angry or distracted, become insubordinate, act out, or have trouble taking interest in school.
A lot of students with social-emotional problems get sent to alternative education programs within the school system. But Mayo said those programs don’t have the capacity to serve all the troubled kids.
To begin to tackle those problems, Mayo announced a new plan: For the first time in his tenure, he’ll enlist a “behaviorist” to work with kids who have trouble cooperating in the classroom.
Within the next month, he’ll hire three behaviorists and three teachers. One teacher and one behaviorist will be stationed at each of three schools: Wexler-Grant, Troup and John Martinez, Mayo later elaborated. The pairs will be stationed in a room. Kids will be sent there if they need to be pulled out of class for behavior issues. The behaviorist-teacher intervention team will also schedule appointments with kids who need help, so they can work with them in times when they’re not already upset, Mayo said.
The superintendent said he also hopes to send teachers to a training program in Waterbury, where they’ll learn strategies in helping kids modify behavior.
The school system is balancing two objectives, said Mayo: keeping students from disrupting class, and adhering to pressure to restrict out-of-school suspensions.
“We’ve got to continue working at it,” Mayo said.
For kids without involved parents in their lives, the school system also has a mentoring program. He encouraged parents to take part.
Georgia Goldburn, an early childhood educator, addressed what she called “a contradiction” in Mayo and Harries’ comments. On one hand, they want kids to reach steep academic goals at an early age. On the other, they want kids to behave well.
In the age of student testing, Pre‑K is becoming more like kindergarten, and there’s less time to teach kids how to socialize and behave well, she said.
“Younger and younger kids are being asked to do more and more,” said Goldburn. When you raise the bar academically, “a lot of the social stuff goes missing.”
Mom On The Fence
After an hour and a half of discussion, a young mother spoke up. She said she came to the meeting with an open mind, but she still isn’t sold on sending her kids to New Haven schools. Her oldest daughter will enter kindergarten in 2010, she said.
As she sees it, she has three choices: Leave New Haven; send her daughter to private school; or vie for a spot in one of New Haven’s two best schools.
To New Haven’s defense, Mayo pointed to the 2,600 suburban students who wake up every day and drive here to attend city schools. They come from 26 towns, he said, for a reason.
The mother said she appreciates that, but the meeting didn’t give her much hope for the public school system.
“There are just such large obstacles,” she said.
Will Clark, the schools’ chief operating officer, offered to give her a personal tour of the city’s schools. Mayo added that he hopes she’d consider staying. She wasn’t optimistic.
Well, if she won’t send her kids to New Haven schools, she can still support the reform effort, Harries said — by staying informed, giving input, and lobbying for funding.
“I don’t know what we’ll do with our daughter,” the mother replied, “but I will be supportive.”
Wednesday’s event was put together with help from the New Haven Public School Foundation. The group last month launched a School Change Campaign to build support for the school reform initiative. Wednesday was the first in what will become a citywide tour of public talks about the changes, according to the NHPSF.
Some previous stories about New Haven’s school reform drive:
• Mayor Launches “School Change” Campaign
• Reform Drive Snags “New Teacher” Team
• Can He Work School Reform Magic?
• Some Parental Non-Involvement Is OK, Too
• Mayor: Close Failing Schools
• Union Chief: Don’t Blame The Teachers
• 3‑Tiered School Reform Comes Into Focus
• At NAACP, Mayo Outlines School Reform
• Post Created To Bring In School Reform
• Board of Ed Assembles Legal Team
What has really done for the schools system?
he's been here for 16 years, and I don't things have improved much.